Cavour would not have understood very accurately what was going on at Naples and Palermo, especially during the three weeks' break in the telegraph service in September. But this hardly mattered, since at last he knew his own mind and could take positive action in accordance with what he knew. While Fanti carried out the military invasion of pontifical and Neapolitan territory, Cavour concentrated on dealing with all the diplomatic and political repercussions of this invasion as they arose. He first applied himself to the problem of how to meet the angry protests which had come in from Russia, Prussia and Spain against the illegality and immorality of his war policy. They had complained that he had neither awaited the Pope's reply to his ultimatum, nor declared war; and that he had flagrantly violated the very principle of non–intervention from which he had formerly derived so much benefit. But to these protests Cavour was able to oppose the active encouragement of Great Britain and the passive connivance of France. The balance of power was thus on his side, as it was invariably on Italy's side during the later and successful years of the risorgimento.

A second problem was more difficult. For a long time he had been perplexed how to combat the revolution without openly attacking Garibaldi. His difficulty was to catch up with the remarkable conversion of public opinion to Garibaldi's beliefs, yet to do this without having publicly to acknowledge either his former impercipience, or his present debt to the revolutionaries.